Here’s how Misha, much-loved Hogle Zoo elephant, is still teaching
Mar 13, 2025, 6:00 PM | Updated: 7:10 pm
Misha breaks a ribbon to open Hogle Zoo's Elephant Encounter in 2005. (Keith Johnson/Deseret News)
(Keith Johnson/Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY — She’s been gone from Hogle Zoo since 2008, but an elephant named Misha is helping University of Utah geologists create best practices for future research on animal migration.
Misha was euthanized in 2008 due to declining health. At that time, and with an eye toward advancing isotope research, University of Utah distinguished professor Thure Cerling asked if his team could keep Misha’s molars and a tusk.
Teeth and migration?
The team was interested in the enamel, the hard outer layer of teeth, which can store the element strontium. After extracting the element, researchers analyzed its isotope ratios to learn where the animal had been.
Related: Elephants from Utah’s Hogle Zoo arrive at new Kansas City home
“As animals eat and drink, they pick up this environmental signature and store it in their teeth, preserving a series of environmental exposures like historic archives,” said the study’s lead author Deming Yang in an announcement posted by the University of Utah.
Isolating the elements from ivory was time-consuming, said Katya Podkovyroff, one of the undergraduates who assisted in the research. The same was true for isotope purification. Each process requires “extreme precision,” she said.
Katya Podkovyroff working at the University of Utah. (University of Utah)
How can the research be used?
Because Misha’s migration history was well-known and documented, researchers said her samples, “offer an excellent experimental setting to understand how (strontium) is archived in different dental tissues,” according to the research published in Communication Biology.
Further, “studies on her enamel and dentine growth, mineralization, and intra-tooth isotopes have facilitated the application of similar tools to extinct species,” the authors said.
Finally, the research can address a modern problem that African elephants face.
“It can also be applied to studies of modern conservation and forensics, to trace the origins of illegal ivory trade and other forms of wildlife trafficking,” Yang said.
